Emotional inteligence

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proportionate to circumstance. When emotions are too
muted they create dullness and distance; when out of
control, too extreme and persistent, they become pathological,
as in immobilizing depression, overwhelming
anxiety, raging anger, manic agitation.
Indeed, keeping our distressing emotions in check is
the key to emotional well-being; extremes—emotions
that wax too intensely or for too long—undermine our
stability. Of course, it is not that we should feel only one
kind of emotion; being happy all the time somehow suggests
the blandness of those smiley-face badges that had
a faddish moment in the 1970s. There is much to be said
for the constructive contribution of suffering to creative
and spiritual life; suffering can temper the soul.
Downs as well as ups spice life, but need to be in balance.
In the calculus of the heart it is the ratio of positive
to negative emotions that determines the sense of wellbeing—at
least that is the verdict from studies of mood
in which hundreds of men and women have carried
beepers that reminded them at random times to record
their emotions at that moment. 1 It is not that people
need to avoid unpleasant feelings to feel content, but
rather that stormy feelings not go unchecked, displacing
all pleasant moods. People who have strong episodes of
anger or depression can still feel a sense of well-being if
they have a countervailing set of equally joyous or happy